Igor Eliseev - One-Two

“What shall we do, Hope? What can we do?” I lamented. “Maybe we should stop hiding in our blanket and show people what we actually look like? Let’s try to visit private apartments and ask dwellers for help.” You made no answer, as if you didn’t hear the question, but the following day you offered the same advice. This being settled, we got rid of the blanket.

Shocked dwellers slammed their doors in our faces, or more often they didn’t open them at all; thus their callousness was complete. So, is there any sense in exposing yourself to people if all you get is humiliation and pain? I want to know! Is it human nature to take offence or become annoyed or irritated when someone asks for help? Nobody likes being troubled by other people’s problems. Yes, we had nothing else to do but to eat the food left for homeless animals in stairways and alleys.

I remember us hunkering down a staircase and eating the food scraps a dog had refused to eat. Suddenly the door behind our backs opens, and a man throws out a loaf of stale bread… It fell rumbling down the stairs. Like wild animals, we dashed to pick it up, not caring if someone was watching us and laughing when we looked back; we were already used to such an attitude even if I still believed people should treat us like humans. In the infinite succession of indignities and injustices that befell us and our half-starved existence, it seemed to be an absolute, incontestable norm that what had happened in the foster home should logically spread to our wretched lives outside of it.

A loaf of stale bread is a very valuable meal – odd that we had never thought about it earlier; if you consume it inexpensively it can suffice for a couple of days. First we broke the bread into several parts, cautiously hid them in our pockets, and then began to eat. I held each piece in my mouth for some time, soaking it with saliva, and had a strange feeling that the man was standing behind the door and still watching us through a peephole, waiting for something else to occur. But I couldn’t care less, it wasn’t important anymore; absolutely everything was unimportant.

Look, Hope, what if people refused to give us alms not because of disgust or irritation; what if they were ashamed to denigrate us by giving us the leftovers intended for animals? I can’t help thinking of people better than they actually are. There may be no other way to share the good, really.

The next day we became witnesses of another incident. An elderly man, who was just passing by, stepped on a footless beggar sitting near the store, totally by accident. Maybe someone pushed the gaffer from behind or he simply didn’t notice the man sitting under everybody’s feet, I can’t tell precisely; however, he nearly fell and, in anger, started caning his limbless “offender”. How interesting the situation was: one person stepped on another and, instead of apologizing, beat him and everyone just stood around and did nothing. I remember that the only thing occupying my mind then was the can of alms that had rolled, scattering coins on the trampled snow. It took great restraint to stop ourselves from rushing to collect that beggar’s earnings but that moment marked our fall, so desperate had we become that we were ready to steal even from a poor, beaten-up, disabled guy.

We spent two, long, winter months between life and death. At night we stayed in the abandoned house whose walls had already become home for us, for our flesh and for our blood. During severe frosts we would make a fire in a tin basin, burning pieces of old furniture scattered around. Our blanket kept getting covered with snow and hoarfrost, so we constantly had to dry it. We also hung up a kettle over the fire and boiled thawed icicles in it; we often drank hot water to prevent ourselves from catching cold. Looking at the burning wood, I tiredly closed my eyes and imagined a real home, cozy and warm. Before going to bed, we had to tie woolen shawls tightly round our heads and wrap up in the blanket. At daybreak, the fire died away, after which our “bedroom” became prisoner to frost and gloom; our broken mirror grew white with hoarfrost; tattered, dampened plaster hung down from the ceiling, the wind blew into cracks, water in the kettle froze up; and white death led by the blizzard walked stately about the house.

February was coming!

One early morning you forcibly woke me up and complained of a sharp belly-ache. I wasn’t surprised at all, for our diet was scarce and loathsome; at times we ate scraps that had definitely gone bad. I got worried that you might suffer the same fate as Half-Jane. I decided to get up, but you only turned your head away and continued lying in dour silence, ignoring my requests, so all I could do was lie down and rest till noon. At last, your pain diminished, replaced by gnawing hunger, renewed vigorous stomach-cramp. Weak and clumsy, we managed to put on our quilted jackets and to go down the stairs but froze on the spot! Between the second and the third floors, we saw a girl, very young, with her head unnaturally thrown back and her eyes open. She didn’t move, keeping enigmatic silence, feeble tenderness clinging to her lips. She looked as if in a moment she might make a movement, get up or say something… but that impression was deceptive. The girl was dead.

“I can’t stand this anymore.” Your voice ripped through the silence like a jagged knife. “It is better to die like she did than to live like animals do.”

“What are you talking about?” I countered fearfully, shivering all over with icy presentiment. “What are you going to do?”

“Haven’t you understood yet? The surgical operation won’t change anything. We have been nothing more than animals and we will stay that way. We will spend all our life attempting to get food, even after our separation. We had a bad start.”

Your words were frightening and repelling, but somewhere deep down in my heart I felt that you were right. However, a part of me was still in disbelief and voluntarily leaving this life was unacceptable. How could we reach a point where everything had no sense at all and there was no purpose left?

“Just look at her. She is happy!” and, clasping my face in your hands, you forced me to look that way. “She’s already got nothing to worry about; she doesn’t suffer from cold anymore and doesn’t care where she can get a grub. Now she doesn’t give a damn about anything.”

“She is free,” I repeated to myself, staring at her stiffened face. Is a primitive escape from life the only way to gain our freedom? Isn’t there some other way?

“We’ll jump out of the window.” You said it so confidently as if you had reflected upon the thought hundreds of times before. “The house is high enough and we will definitely fall to our death. Just think about it, this time we will make the decision completely by ourselves. For the first time we will be personally responsible for our fate; it’s the only thing we have got left.”

Indeed, people are equal only in one thing. Every one of us is gifted a life; other differences are only notional. What to do with our lives is at our own discretion. The time had come to bestow upon us the most exalted gift of serenity and joy. We silently trudged back upstairs. I fancied that I heard steps creaking and groaning throughout the entire stairway as if hundreds of invisible feet were stepping on them along with us. We were still alive, but among the ghosts already.

It was snowing outside; the iron ledge boomingly tapped in the blasts of wind huffily breaking into the house that had sheltered us from death. At the window I hesitated for a moment, desperately vacillating between imminence and fear. In my mind, multiple questions were replaced by new ones. What is the point of living if we are going to die anyway? What difference does it make if it’s going to happen now or later? All we have to do is to take a step and jump off; that will resolve all problems, answer all questions once and forever. And what if we are already flying down ? We have jumped off – perhaps, right after birth – not even knowing about it! The ground is already near; we just have this last moment to live and then we are finally released and we realize we are already dead , and had been from the moment of birth.